It didn’t come in the opening quarter and it hasn’t come at other times across the first five rounds, but it did come in the third quarter of St Kilda’s 75-point win over Hawthorn at University of Tasmania Stadium on Saturday.

Despite dominating the opening quarter in Launceston, St Kilda couldn’t capitalise on the scoreboard early. But when it did come the floodgates burst open, with the Saints finally turning the tide in their favour, booting 8.5 to 1.1 in the third quarter to put the game to bed by the final break.

After poor conversion marred St Kilda’s performances against West Coast and Brisbane, the Saints were finally rewarded on the scoreboard, much to the satisfaction of Senior Coach Alan Richardson.

“We’ve had periods this year with our footy that’s been quite dominant and we haven’t been able to score and the shots that we’ve had have been minor – we haven’t been able to kick goals basically so that was pleasing,” Richardson said in his post-match press conference on Saturday night.

“It’s just great for the guys when they work that hard and I reckon that was as good as we’ve hunted the opposition for a while.

“I don’t know what the tackle numbers were but I know when we had the opportunity to tackle we were really strong and really positive.

“For big parts of the game our pressure was really high and that third quarter the guys were able to get reward for their effort and that was really pleasing.”

After overcoming an interrupted start to his career at St Kilda, off-season recruit Koby Stevens made an eye-catching impact first-up, finishing with 28 possessions (12 contested), six tackles and two goals on debut.

Richardson said he was pleased with the former Western Bulldogs and West Coast midfielders start, particularly given the setback he overcome on the eve of the season when a bout of food poisoning hospitalised him for a week and stripped eight kilograms off his frame.

“We think that Koby can certainly help us; he’s a very good contest player, his ability to be able to wear the heat and be quite composed under pressure, his ability to be able to find his teammates in that pressure was really positive today.

“His preparation to be frank wasn’t ideal. He hasn’t played a lot of footy in the lead up so it’s a real testament to him and our conditioning staff to get him to a level where he can have such a strong performance off not an ideal prep. I was really pleased for Koby today.”

With emerging powerhouse Greater Western Sydney descending on Etihad Stadium next Friday night, Richardson said the Saints are excited by the challenge and by the opportunity to return to Friday night football for the first time in a couple of years.

“As a footy club we haven’t been on a Friday night for a while; we certainly didn’t have one last year. It’s exciting for our players; its exciting for our footy club so we really look forward to it,” Richardson said.

“They are a really good footy team playing aggressive footy. It will be an enormous contest.”